Lightning Is the Only Way

After a while, Gravis decided to check how good the tortoise was at turning. He ran circles around the tortoise while steadily moving closer. The tortoise was very sluggish. It moved slowly, and it turned even slower. It was no problem for him to circle the tortoise even from a five-meter distance. Gravis realized that the only dangerous thing about this tortoise was its deadly bite, and he grew more confident.

Gravis remained behind the tortoise while it was watching him. When he moved away from the tortoise's vision, it turned its head the other way to keep watch on him. Finally, Gravis had a plan. He went to the back-left, and when the tortoise turned its head, he quickly ran to the right and swung his saber on its hindleg.

Sparks and blood flew out, and Gravis managed to create a gash a couple of centimeters deep, hitting its bone. The tortoise shouted in pain and quickly pulled all its legs into its shell. The shell fell heavily to the floor. Just by the sound of the thump, one could hear the density and weight of the shell. If Gravis could not even cut through the bone of its leg, he could only dream about cutting through its shell. The head was still out and continued to watch Gravis. Its expression changed to rage.

'Now what?' Gravis thought. He could no longer attack its legs. Should he attack its head? Gravis looked at the tortoise's head and decided against that. Just one snap would end his life.

On top of that, the scales on its head looked way tougher than the ones on its legs. Gravis jumped to the other side again, so the tortoise lost its vision of him. He kneeled and stabbed into the leg-hole on the other side.

He felt the saber connect, but also felt that he didn't get a deep cut. He could not use all his strength in this position, and sabers were not made for stabbing. Nevertheless, the tortoise roared again, and two legs on the opposite side of Gravis shot out. Its legs kicked the ground, and its shell rotated by 45°. At the same time, its head snapped towards Gravis, who jumped back. It nearly got him. Its jaws echoed throughout the cave again.

Gravis took a deep breath. That was dangerous. So, the tortoise could pull a maneuver like that. The tortoise, angry that it missed, roared more and continued to snap at Gravis, even though he was well out of its range. Apparently, the tortoise was furious now. It turned to him and sprinted in his direction, faster than normal.

dash' aggravated the injury on its leg. More blood was seeping out, and Gravis continued to take his time. He

trail of blood coated the floor of the cave. Gravis jumped behind the tortoise and attacked the already injured leg again. The tortoise immediately pulled its leg back into its shell. It had stopped underestimating him. It

its leg a couple more times, but he never connected. This fight was really frustrating for him. That thing was turtling up. Gravis furiously rubbed his head, trying to think of

moved left, right, up, and down. Its jaws were constantly snapping around him, and a couple of times, it nearly

like that, it changed to swinging left and right, forward and backward. Gravis was holding on for dear life. After a while, he noticed that the tortoise was better at alternating between back to front than from side

the tortoise, but when its center

Gravis jumped on top of its belly. Neither its legs nor its head could reach him there.

Even if it managed to turn around again, its own weight would probably push out its organs through its underside. Gravis won! He sat down at a safe distance and

slowed. Even though the tortoise tried to kill him, looking at a slowly dying beast was still uncomfortable for Gravis. He was not used to death. Looking at the tortoise, Gravis felt like he was losing something, or that he did something wrong. He knew that only one of them could survive. There was no

and stood up. His next enemy

it went through the whole cave like a wave. Gravis looked around, not sure what was happening. Suddenly, water poured out of the cracks in the cave furiously. One would think that the cave was beneath a

This was probably one of those instances where the environment was the enemy. The wind picked up, and big waves kept appearing all over the water. In the beginning, Gravis could still swim, but as the waves grew stronger, things started to get problematic. It proved difficult to stay above the surface with increasing frequency. He had to

the surface. The surface was going wild with waves, but under the surface, everything was calm. Maybe this was the way to survive this ordeal with as little stamina usage as possible. He could probably also survive at the surface, but he would also use up

had strengthened organs, after all. After realizing that, Gravis calmed himself and closed